Question Number: 28045

Law 11 - Offside 12/4/2013

RE: Competitive Other

Walter of Los Angeles, CA USA asks...

I was 'confronted' by a coach of a game a while ago regarding this interpretation of Law 11. We have a Right Forward and Left Forward 40 yards apart on opposite sides of the field There is one defender in between then.

Right Forward attempts to cross is to Left Forward (who is in the offside position when the ball is kicked) and the defender clears the ball to avoid it being played to the Left Forward.

In this situation, because the defender made a play to prevent to ball from getting crossed to the offside LF, would the LF be considered 'interfering with play or the opponent' by forcing him to make a play on the ball, even though he was 20 yards away from where the ball was cleared, or is considered to not be active in the play because of how far away he was?

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

No. Not offside.

The player in offside position (PIOP) must do something that affects the defender's ability to see or play the ball. The recent change to the terms used in defining interfering with an opponent was intended to make this clearer. For the non-referee, the phrase that may now matter most is whether the PIOP made a challenge for the ball.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

A long time ago Law 11 could be interpreted in a way that would permit us to penalise a player for a decision a defender has made.

In recent years FIFA have tried to clarify this by including clearer definitions to 'interfering with an opponent'.

Drawing an opponent out of position, or a defender playing the ball in a certain direction because of the presence of an offside attacker is not 'interfering with an opponent' - these are decisions by the defender, not actions by the attacker.

The attacker was not actively involved in play, and simply being in an offside position is not sufficient to penalise that player.

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Years ago the USSF came up with the concept of 'area of active play'. The reasoning was that sometimes the offside-positioned player was just too close to play, and so was automatically involved. This area stretched and shrunk according to the game situation. 20 yards away from active play would be quite a stretch - most refs would not call offside.

That has gone away with the new interpretation of involvement from the Laws of the Game, Interpretation and Guidance section:
• "interfering with an opponent" means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball

So even if your 20-yard-distant player might have been called offside by some refs in the past, he should not be called offside now.

Answer provided by Referee

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Walter
There cannot be any offside here as the player in an offside position has not interfered with play by touching the ball nor interfered with an opponent by challenging for the ball or prevented the defender from seeing the ball.
If the ball deflected or rebounded off the defender to the player in an offside position then the PIOP could be called offside for 'gaining an advatage by being in that position' when he touches the ball.
It is in the opinion of the referee what is a deliberate play and what is a deflection / rebound. I think most referees can easily determine the difference based on what transpired.